I’ve posted some info on here before about the ongoing soap opera that is the Yellowstone Club World Blixseth couple, a man and wife that have led a boom and bust life more dramatic than any reality TV script Bravo could throw together. The latest news from the Wall Street Journal has a Mexico twist: wife Edra Blixseth is putting their Los Cabos home up for sale at a list price of $12.88 million.

If you’re interested, it’s a two-acre oceanfront estate with 10,000 square feet of living space inside (six bedrooms) and another 7,000 feet outside.

She was awarded the house as part of the couple’s knock-down, drag-out divorce proceedings, but she has since declared personal bankruptcy. This Los Cabos home pales in comparison to their one near Palm Springs, CA. That listing has “excess” written all over it. The Journal described “a fountain with jets whose sprays rise about 80 feet and a private, 19-hole golf course of about 240 acres. The roughly 25,000-square-foot main residence is decorated with several ceiling murals and has a prayer room and separate wings for guests and children.”

My personal background on all this is that several years ago I was reviewing the property called Yellowstone Club World Tamarindo that was part of their vacation club, located in the Costalegre area a couple hours south of Puerto Vallarta. The lackey general manager pointed to the Blixseth yacht moored off the shore and told me how rich the owner was, that he was a billionaire who traveled the world and was pouring money into the resort to make it the best in Mexico. If you’ve seen the new Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland movie, picture this guy as one of the Red Queen court helpers with pasted on large ears. I could tell then that something was not quite right, but the resort looked great so I moved on.

Thankfully the resort and excellent golf course were quickly bought by someone else and both are still great, as simply El Tamarindo, but there’s no Blixseth yacht in the harbor anymore…

I’m one of those cranky editors always whining about my inbox being jammed up with press releases I never open, much less read. But every once in a while I get something interesting like this that’s worth sharing.

The lovely Las Ventanas al Paraiso resort in Los Cabos has worked out an arrangement where they’re getting advance copies of books from U.S. publishers. These “galleys” are the copies sent out to reviewers well ahead of the book being commercially available, so that they can write their review far enough ahead to make it into the magazine when the book is hitting the shelves. Las Ventanas is handing these out to their guests to read by the pool or in their room, giving them a rare chance to read a novel before the book clubs have even heard of it (and before Oprah has given her blessing).

The currently available novels include:

* The Lake Shore Limited by Sue Miller
* The Third Rail by Michael Harvey
* 29 by Adena Halpern
* Zoo Story by Thomas French
* The Ark by Boyd Morrison
* The Other Family by Joanna Trollope
* The Poet Prince by Kathleen McGowan
* Beautiful Maria of My Soul by Oscar Hijuelos
* A Soft Place to Land by Susan Rebecca White
* The Life of Andrew Jackson by Robert Remini

Las Ventanas is known for rolling out unique services, like having a bath butler get your room all set up and romantic while you’re having dinner. Hey, they even have a Department of Romance. This advance book Hot Type program is another service that’s unique and surprising—which is kind of rare in the post-Dubai hotel world.

See our full review of Las Ventanas al Paraiso and a blog post on their guest culinary program.

It’s been a long time coming, but the luxury hotel scene in Mexico City now has another addition: luxurious boutique hotel Las Alcobas.

I met with one of the owners of Las Alcobas almost exactly a year ago. At that point the hotel was quite far along and the lobby furniture had already been delivered. It looked like only a matter of weeks until the doors would open and guests would arrive.

Alas, Mexico got hit with a triple whammy of woes after that and they decided it was not the best of times to make a big splash and take a huge risk of opening an empty hotel. Not too many visitors were intrepid enough to land in Mexico City when the whole H1N1 scare broke out.

Thankfully, we’re a year closer to better times and Las Alcobas has opened its doors. Designed by Yabu Pushelberg in a style best described as Mad Men meets Milan, it’s chic, organic, and enticing, with a style like nothing else in the city. With just 35 rooms and a personal concierge at your beck and call, this is the place to land if you want to rub shoulders with the rich and famous in Mexico City’s ritzy neighborhood of Polanco.

See our full review of Las Alcobas luxury boutique hotel then click over to their website listed at the end to see more photos and check opening special rates.

When most travelers think of the Los Cabos area, they think of big splashy beach resorts, glitzy spas, and huge pool complexes. Casa Natalia is not one of those. For us “luxury” is about attentive service and a sense of place as much as it is about amenities and glamor, so we’re happy to get a review up of this fine boutique hotel in San Jose del Cabo.

“Casa Natalia celebrated its first decade in 2009, yet many Cabo regulars are unaware of its presence. It’s not on one of Cabo’s many unswimmable beaches (Los Cabos is a beach resort with few safe places to play in the water). There aren’t any rowdy nightclubs or chain restaurants in the neighborhood. Instead, Casa Natalia anchors the increasingly gentrified historic disrict of downtown San José del Cabo.”

This little hideaway has only 16 rooms and suites, but has a restaurant that earns raves and with a no-children-under-13 policy, it’s a romantic retreat as well. See our full review here: Casa Natalia in San Jose del Cabo.

Anyone who has been to Cancun and Playa del Carmen in the past couple years has witnessed first-hand the effects of overbuilding, reef degradation, and multiple hurricane hits. Some of this is just natural beach erosion, some of it has been hastened by dumb building and environmental practices.

After lots of promises, the local governments have put beach restoration in high gear though. They already dumped multiple tons of sand on Cancun’s beaches and you can see the effects here in this quickie video from the Cancun Tourism board.

The trucks will soon go to work in Playa del Carmen as well, with beach widening going on for a 2.7-mile stretch. I’m assuming that includes the Playacar resort area as the beaches north of Playa del Carmen are not in such bad shape. Some small craft docks are going up in the center as well, giving boats a place to tie up so they don’t have to be dragged on and off the beach every time. There’s nothing much that can be done now about the wall of concrete too close to the shore, but I guess they can do this all over again in a few years if another hurricane comes.

UPDATE – Here’s a nice before and after shot in front of the Ritz-Carlton Cancun

See detailed reviews of the best luxury hotels in Cancun and Playa del Carmen